Seb Cole promises London will not become ’siege city’ during Games

London, Dec 29 (IANS) Sebastian Coe, the president of London Olympic and Paralympic Games Organizing Committee (LOCOG), has promised the local media that the capital would not turn into a siege city due to military deployment next summer.

Coe said security would not be overbearing during the Games and will be balanced by a sense of “proportionality”, Xinhua reported.

“You don’t want people coming to London thinking they have walked into a siege city,” said the LOCOG president Wednesday. “It’s certainly not what you are going to get legacy tourism from.”

Early this month, British government doubled the venue security bill to 553 million pounds. An extra 13,700 security guards within venues, including a part of 135,000 military personnel deployed for the Games, will be needed on top of the 10,000 already planned.

“I think people will realise they are in a very special year. It’s a bit like Halley’s comet, it doesn’t come around that often and everything is in alignment,” Coe added.